


The Hand In the Dark

by Quedarius



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A.G.R.A., Backstory, Canon Exploration, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 20:31:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1239829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedarius/pseuds/Quedarius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>----<br/>It is May, 2001</p>
<p>…and I am in love. It is a Glock 17. Each time I shoot, punching a neat hole in the fragile paper emblazoned with a human silhouette, it bumps back gently against my palm in a little ‘thank you’.  I feel the shock of it travel up my arm, and in that moment I am whole. Everything outside of the cubicle, the gun, and the target is no longer important—the unpaid bills on the table of my studio, the full message light blinking quietly on the phone in my pocket, the very world outside; millions and millions of people eating and talking and fucking, it all disappears as long as my arm is completed by this beautiful piece of plastic and metal...</p>
<p>----<br/>Exploration of Mary's past through short snapshots. Fits within canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hand In the Dark

It is May, 2001

…and I am in love. It is a Glock 17. Each time I shoot, punching a neat hole in the fragile paper emblazoned with a human silhouette, it bumps back gently against my palm in a little ‘thank you’. I feel the shock of it travel up my arm, and in that moment I am whole. Everything outside of the cubicle, the gun, and the target is no longer important—the unpaid bills on the table of my studio, the full message light blinking quietly on the phone in my pocket, the very world outside, millions and millions of people eating and talking and fucking, it all disappears as long as my arm is completed by this beautiful piece of plastic and metal.  
After I am finished, taking off the big, blocky headphones, the man entering the cubicle next to mine murmurs “Damn...” and I smile. It has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with the neat circular hole I leave in the center of the target’s featureless forehead.

 

It is January 2002

…and I have just taken my first life. The gun in my shaking hands does not feel comforting, and this was not a thin, flat thing in a shooting range on the other end of the muzzle, but a real, breathing person who just moments ago was standing in front of me shouting and cursing and looking like he needed a shower and a good night’s sleep. And shooting at me. I stumble and lean against the tall cement support beam studded with the pock-marks of our firefight, and when I see the gun still in my hand, treacherous thing, I violently evict my lunch in the middle of this parking garage, rank with the smells of blood and gasoline. Other field agents arrive, take notes and photos for the report, smoke, and congratulate me on “catching the bastard”. I sit on the side while I am needed, and leave as soon as I am not. There is a new, cold feeling creeping over me, and I am afraid. Not of the gun, but of myself.

 

It is June, 2014

… and I am lying to John. After crossing a busy street on our way out to lunch, we cut through the parking lot of a petrol station, and I’m acutely aware of the fumes—a stench I will forever associate with death. I am telling him quietly “I’m fine, it’s probably just morning sickness,” with a smile that I hope is believable, and must be, because he smiles back, eyes squinted against the sun, and no more is said about it. It is not the first or the last lie I will tell him.

 

It is August, 2005

I am laying low in a tiny flat in Quibdó. Rain pounds incessantly on the leaky roof, and ‘plinks’ neatly into the glasses I have strategically placed to combat it. The wallpaper is peeling, the sofa I am lounging across smells of the previous occupant, and the old television will only broadcast a steady hum of staticky Spanish soaps while a framed painting of Jesus looks on disappointedly from the wall with the only window. My boredom is tangible. When I go to the cupboards again, in search of what I’m not quite sure, there is a letter.  
It is addressed to me. My real name, the name of a woman who, at least on paper, was ‘killed in action’ two years ago, is written in neat, girlish handwriting on the front. A red wax seal tops it all. It is surreal, it looks like something from a storybook…   
…and I have no idea how it got into my kitchen, or how someone knows I am even alive, let alone here in this exact place. After two weeks of ennui, what should terrify me only intrigues me, and I tear into it, heedless of poisons or threats. But it is not either. I scan the few short sentences, and finally the signature, a single letter ‘M’, needlessly embellished. It is a proposition.

 

It is March, 1985

My mother is singing while she wipes off the counter after lunch. It is summer vacation, and the humid New England air filters through the screen door. She is singing ‘Dear Prudence’, but she is replacing each ‘Prudence’ with my name. I giggle as she asks through slightly off-key song if I will come out to play. My brother, mouth smeared with peanut butter, says he really does want to play, if we’re done being weird, and Mom tells us to go ahead and go outside.  
The grass is cool in the shade of the big elm behind the house, and the water in the shallow creek is even better relief from the heat. We splash around although we’re not supposed to, and then in bare feet, we play a game of tag. My brother is bigger than me, but I am fast, and we run ourselves weary, pointing stubby fingers like guns at each other. The first few rounds, I am the cop, but I quickly bore of catching him, and then I become the robber.

 

It is October 2006

…and I am in love. Not with the slight man with his dark eyes and soft, lilting voice, or his money, or his hands in the pockets of his expensive suits. I am in love with the life that he offers me. I travel the world under so many names, but each time I meet with him, it is my real name that comes from his lips. Whether it is an endearment or a threat, I can’t be sure. With him, I imagine they amount to the same thing.  
And to be honest, there is something sexy about it. He gives me work, and at first that’s all it is, but each time we meet, be it in a limo or an abandoned warehouse, he purrs,  
“Nicely _done_ , love.”   
Soon enough I find myself looking forward to these little, clandestine meetings almost as much as the challenge I know each new dossier will present. He knows the dark, twisted parts of me that even I cringe from, and he admires them most. Under his capable hands, I am a weapon. He shapes me into something that goes bump in the night, something so terrible and powerful that sometimes I do not recognize the eyes looking back at me from the mirror. And the deeper I become entangled in his web, the less I seem to care.

 

It is December 2007

…and I am dead.   
While my body, bruised and broken, flat-lines on a hospital bed, I dream of falling. With my last few moments, my panicking brain fires synapses at random, and I am pulled through flashes of pain and memory. I hear myself choke “Jim, don’t—“ and I’m not sure if I am really speaking.   
“Begging, darling?” he says, voice managing to be both disgusted and condescending, “Don’t worry, I’ll find you again when I need you.”  
I see his face, contorted into a smile that is colder than his darkest scowl, as he brings the blade to snag the fabric at the waist of my coat. I feel it like ice and fire as it pierces my abdomen, sheared nerve endings screaming to an already foggy mind, and then I fall… not long, but high enough that when I land, I feel bone crunch.  
Doctors and nurses rush around me, fighting for a life I am not sure I want to live, and his words echo through my mind like a song.

 

It is September, 2013

…and John is not the only one with nightmares. I wonder through tears, as the dream fades away to the comforting feel of his hands on my face, the sound of his voice and the steady beat of his heart, what lie I will have to tell him this time.

 

It is April, 2009

I have a small, satisfying life now; there is something to be said for domesticity. I am alone, but it is safer that way. I am learning to bake. I have a cat and a little house in the countryside. I have books, and I have a well-healed scar that I tell my doctor is from getting my appendix out. There is some boredom, but there is less fear. Jim Moriarty’s eyes visit my nightmares less and less often. I start a journal. I say a little prayer to the universe each night that he will not find me.

 

It is July 2010

…when he does.

 

It is February 2012

…and I meet the last man I will ever kill—but he is already dead. 

When I receive the name “Mary Morstan”, there is no secret meeting, just a folder full of paperwork and instructions. I wonder if it is because Jim is afraid that I would kill him. In the same thought, I doubt that he is afraid of anything. He holds the worst kind of power over me, that of my name, and so I don’t ask questions, I simply do as he indicates in his letter. He says this will be the last job, and I have no choice but to hope that is the truth.   
Dr. John Watson shakes my hand wearily, but doesn’t seem to take much notice of me, or any of the staff. His eyes seem far away, he jumps at every small noise, and one day he sits in his office and simply gazes at the same sheet of stationary for four hours.   
I watch this strange, broken man, until the day that I will receive further instructions. I know very little when I start, only what the dossier says. I know about the tall man in the coat who John is looking for when he stares out the window, and I know that he is not coming back.   
Time passes. I am surprised to find a kind of peace in the work. John helps people while he continues to suffer, and I learn. I learn that he tightens his fingers into a fist when he’s tense, which happens more often on his bad days. I learn to stop bringing the sugar in with his coffee. I see a wider variety of jumpers than I ever thought possible for one person to wear.   
Time passes. I begin to see him heal. I don’t think that he will ever stop looking sharply when a door opens, as if the famous detective will suddenly burst in, alive out of sheer willpower, but at least he stops looking so disappointed when it’s me that comes in instead. I help him manage his schedule, and I help him remember to smile every now and then.  
One day, I realize that six months have passed with no further word from Moriarty. Not long after that, I hear that he is dead, his criminal network crumbling. I am not sure it can be true, or what this means for me, but I start to believe that Mary Morstan may be able to continue this quiet existence without his shadow hanging over her.

 

It is November, 2012

When I take John’s coffee in, I see that it is a bad day. His chair is askew on the floor, his papers scattered. He sits on the floor, knees drawn up to his chest, crouched amidst the mess like an absurd paperclip king. His face is in his hands, and this time he makes no move to pretend to be sleeping, or to just be rubbing his eyes as he has before when I have caught him mourning. This scares me, but fear is an old friend of mine, and so it is with the greatest calm that I set the mugs (his and mine; we take coffee together now) on the bare desk and sit beside my final target.   
“He’s not coming back,” John says.   
Silently, I agree, but I say nothing. Neither I nor Mary Morstan know what Sherlock Holmes meant to him, and now does not seem to be the time to ask. I have my share of secrets; certainly John is entitled to a few.   
For a moment, the air feels too thick; it’s as if I am drowning in all the words that lie unspoken between us. It is not often that I don’t know what to do, but I really am lost and it doesn’t feel as bad as I thought to just allow myself to be overwhelmed. John’s eyes, red-rimmed, meet mine, and for a moment he is not looking at Mary, his well-meaning co-worker, but right at me. All my harshness and hunger is laid bare. Far from being afraid though, I am breathless. I have traveled the world, been so many people, and hunted the most dangerous prey, but never have I felt a thrill like this.   
Then, the spell is broken; John lets his hands fall to his lap, begins his usual apologies, and moves as if to pick up the papers. It doesn’t matter. My world has already shifted. I decide that my past died with Moriarty, and I—no, _Mary_ – will try to put together this man that he broke. 

 

It is May, 2014… and I am in love.


End file.
